From the desk of Dr. Howard Zayne, PhD

To Whom It May Concern,

     Firstly, there have been beings of renown in the Earth since the
beginning.  The Bible, being one of the most widely known historical records,
states that angels laid with the daughters of men and that this was a bad
idea.  Well, I'm not one to question the ways of gods, but I will say that
these legends, demihuman offspring of a divine union, have always been our
protectors.
     Earth has long been a galactic battleground.  Many, many visitors have
honored or shamed us with their presence.  The reasons for this need not be
gone into now.  Let it just be stated that all the legends ever printed, and
a great many never, have, in one form or another, actually occured.  Many
times the war over Earth has endangered her, which is why they walk amongst
us.  In these late days of humanity's coming winter, there seem to be more
now than ever before.  While it is certainly a plausible explanation should
one not take our government's staggering ineptitude into account, it is
highly unlikely that until recently the greatest cover-up in the history of
man was keeping us all from that truth. They really have not always been
around in such numbers.
     No, the simple reality is that the world is about to end.

     These superbeings, if you will, have been covering humanity's bets
since time immemorial and yet only a whisper of a forgotten vision remains
of their exploits until now, until... just now.  Today, they are everywhere,
yet nobody seems to come to the only logical conclusion:  When guardian
angels gather, the shit is hitting the fan.
     So, who was the first?  Paul Bunyon?  Jesus?  Hard to say.  Difficult
to extract the facts when they printed the legend.  The first recently is a
bit easier.
     You see, the often subtle nature of Avatar powers combined with how
rarely Man is truly tested result in a great many who never realize their
full potential.  At fifty-three, Enos Youngerman was still in fine health.
He had hardly been sick a day in his life, was strong as an ox practically
from birth, and possessed of an infallible empathy for his fellow man.  He
had raised three beautiful children who had some of their own, and Jacob
loved his wife all his adult days until her death the week prior.  It was a
Friday, the first day he'd seen the sun since he lost his beloved Marlene.
He was in his garden, attacking the weeds as if every plant slain was one
penny towards the cost of bringing her back.  It was a long time before he
heard the noise.

     Sometimes sabotage is perfect, and when a turbofan devours itself and
explodes without any warning it can ignite the fuel in the wing and the
craft transforms into a very heavy, flaming bomb rapidly descending to a
nice, secluded area so that everyone aboard will surely die and the
collateral damage is at a bare minimum.

     The sound of a passenger jet falling from the sky with everyone left
alive aboard screaming as they are cooked alive at twenty-thousand feet is
like the sound of God's wrath.  At least, that's exactly what Jacob thought
when he looked up.  No matter how fast he ran, there would be no escape and
Jacob smiled, closed his eyes, and imagined what Marlene would look like
when he saw her in just a few seconds.
     At first, there was only darkness and silence.  The silence was
absolute, not even the roar of his own racing pulse in his ears.  "But this
can't be Heaven," Jacob thought, "it's too damned hot!"  When he opened his
eyes to the flames and carnage, tears leapt to his eyes, not understanding
why he'd been damned.  Realization took only a moment.
     All his life Jacob did what was necessary. No matter how tired, scared
or confused he might have been, he did what was needed.  In total silence
he pulled people from the flame, living and dead, he freed them from what
he'd taken for Hell.  The pressure of the impact had burst his eardrums:  a
small price to pay for having a small aircraft land on one's head.
     Jacob, like a man who'd challened a machine on a race through a
mountain, finished his toil exhausted to the limits of mortality. Perhaps
if there had been ambulances in Smith's time, he would have survived, as
well.
     Jacob had saved the lives of some very important people that day, the
leaders of two nations amongst them.  The incident was well spun and by the
time it hit the headlines a military craft with a minimal crew had fallen
upon a farm in rural Illinois.  There were no survivors.
     The following year, reports began of a costumed stranger performing
good deeds all over the United States. It was 1963.  

     Early in the spring of 1984, the first of the infamous Metahuman Laws
was ratified by overwhelming majority in the United States and the UN was
soon to follow.  By 1986 an estimated 80 percent of all "super-powered
beings" had registered with an international database maintained by Interpol
and overseen by the UN Security Council. Enterprising young hackers exposed
the lists to the world on three seperate occasions before the entire system
was torn down in 1989.

     In the cold dark of December, 1990, the Prometheus Project was founded
by sixteen member nations with strong support from dozens more.  The first
of its kind, Prometheus fought fire with fire.  While beauraucrats sat
around the planning table, only Avatars met in the war room, spearheading
a movement towards tolerance and justice for all.  It was only a matter of
time before the forces of darkness, for lack of a better term, responded.
Thus was the history of metakind forged in blood.  Like the warriors of
Valhalla, they tested their might against one another until the final
battle, it would seem.

     Whenever a person is "miraculously unharmed," or an old woman juggles
a 'fridge, any time you hear a story of a stupendous feat performed by a
total nobody, oftentimes in a moment of great stress that the press seems
to completely forget, it is the story of an Avatar's "birth."
     There are hundreds of them, I'm sure, that one has probably heard in a
lifetime. Or hundreds of versions of same.  Everyone knows about the granny-
fridge incident, and also the tale of a man who walked away after plummeting
thousands of feet to Earth.  He bounced!  And he lived...  Where is he now?
     Granny, it is certain, hasn't donned tights and gone on an adventure.
She has, however, been assisting with teaching at the elementary education
unit of Black Talon's Avatar Academy.  Nobody knows its hers, of course, and
nobody can prove it, but have no doubt:  it is all hers.  The Academy opened
its doors in 1991.
     Since that time, every discovered (some say Awakened, but I do not)
super-powered being, of the mundane sort, has found its way into the Academy
and usually been better for it and not taken to some very dark place where
terribly awful things might happen.  Usually.
     At any rate, Academy-trained Avatars, the Press Corps' trademarked
term, are good, noble citizens ready to take charge of any situation and
draw with confidence and control upon their special abilities should the
need ever arise, and whose special national security status grants them near
total immunity from any legal ramifications that could possibly arise from
these actions. This has bitten the government and the Academy right in the
ass several times.

     Should this document ever see the light, unfortunately for me, it will
be a posthumous revealing. Perhaps somebody could make use of this
information. I, for one, a lowly Research scientist, haven't the creativity
or resources to make it a tale worth telling.


							Sincerely,



							Dr. Howard F. Zayne
Last Updated:
Saturday, October 25, 2008
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